Sustainability assessment of large-scale ethanol production from sugarcane

The present study assesses the sustainability of ethanol produced from sugarcane and examines the environmental feasibility of a large-scale production through the use of. fossil fuel embodied energy and Emergy Assessment including farm and industrial production phases. The study indicates that about 1.82 kg of topsoil eroded, 18.41 of water and 1.52 m(2) of land are needed to produce 11 of ethanol from sugarcane. Also, 0.28 kg Of CO2 is released per liter of ethanol produced. The energy content of ethanol is 8.2 times greater than the fossil-based energy required to produce it. The transformity of ethanol is about the same as those calculated for fossil fuels. The Renewability of ethanol is 30%, a very low value; other emergy indices indicate important environmental impacts as well as natural resources consumption. The results obtained indicate that sugarcane and ethanol production present low renewability when a large-scale system is adopted. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.